In the newspaper and other periodical publishing industries it is desirable to place one or more copies of the publication for sale on display in the interest of inducing prospective purchasers to in fact become purchasers. This has customarily been provided for in vending machines of all types.
Many periodical vending machines have heretofore provided for displaying a copy of that which was for sale, some but not all provide for selling this display copy. U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,804,223 Voegeli and 2,904,216 Poland both teach this type of display. The former is addressed to the semi-honor type of vendor wherein the purchaser upon depositing the proper coinage has access to the total product content of the vendor and is trusted to take only one. It is intended that the last purchaser to gain access to the product storage area will remove the readily accessable display copy thus exposing an empty notation. The latter patent is addressed to the single copy vending art wherein the purchaser has access to only one copy for each insertion of proper coinage and wherein a means is provided to make the display copy available to the purchaser after the principal supply has been exhausted, again exposing some suitable lettering to indicate the machine is empty.
In both the above cited cases the access to the display area is in the back of the door and readily accessable to the service person who has access to the product storage or reloading chamber. In the former the display area has a fixed bottom and no action is required to ready it for reloading, the latter does require the closing of a display copy support means referred to as a trap door prior to insertion of a new display copy but this too is readily accessable to the service person.
The present invention is generally addressed to those single copy vendors wherein the access to the display area is outside the principle product storage area and not exposed to the service person in the course of reloading the principle storage area.
The present invention teaches the use of a linkage interconnected between the access door to the display area and the display copy support means whereby the opening of the access door resets said support means readying said display area for the insertion of a current display copy. A separate reset linkage could be provided but it would represent one more manual step in the reloading of the vendor and in many instances such as newspaper vending wherein a service person is required to refill a large number of vendors with a perishable product, any motion reducing innovation is of importance and when coupled with the means taught in the accompanying U.S. Patent Application Ser. Nos. 066,480, 066,481 for reducing the required service time, can make the heretofore generally financially impractical single copy vending, practical.
The present invention is not taught or suggested by the prior art which is exemplified by either the above mentioned or the following U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,174,608 Knickerbocker, 3,946,846 Pepiciello and 3,158,248 Hawks.